Anchor Girl
by Chloe Veverka
Summary: "She would close her eyes, center her breathing, and fade away with the rhythm, the strings, the bass, the voices in her ears that she could control with the press of a button instead of the undead whispers that floated around her on a daily basis. Music was her temporary safe haven. 'If you stay, you stay quiet,' she had told him softly, plainly, simply." One way S5 Bonnie coped.


**A/N:** Inspired by a random night of listening to music, I wanted to write a short piece about Mid-Season 5 Bonnie (aka recently-turned Anchor Bonnie) and a moment she might have, using music to cope with all of the major life changes that impacted her identity. I'm also a fan of Bonnie and Damon's relationship, though it surfaces here as more of a friendship than a romantic one (though not without a hint or two of interest). The three songs referenced in this story are, in order: "Here With Me" by Dido, "Honestly Okay" by Dido, and "Sour Girl" by Stone Temple Pilots.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to _The Vampire Diaries, _nor do I own the rights to the songs whose lyrics are referenced.

Anchor Girl

Nails the color of dark red wine tapped along with the deep bass guitar that filled the dorm room. Bonnie's bob splayed across her pillow, making a smooth swirling pattern against a print of sketched mossy green and yellow autumn leaves, mahogany branches, and burnt sienna flowers. Legs crossed, one foot sank into her duvet while the other swayed in the air. Her eyes were closed, showing off the cat's eye liner across her lids. His eyes scanned her seemingly relaxed form, noting the nibbled-upon fingernails and the bags under her eyes she had covered with concealer. She could tell that his vision cut through the visual act she was performing because she always felt his eyes. They were too piercing to go unnoticed for too long, even when you wanted to ignore them, mock them, or deny their power.

She had told him from the get-go, "If you stay, you stay quiet." There were too few moments when she had the dorm room to herself. You'd think she'd like it that way. She had spent months on her own on the Other Side as a ghost, distant yet present.

…_I wonder how am I still here…And I don't want to move a thing, it might change my memory…_

But even being in the land of the living felt draining. From zero to 100, she had gone from being invisible and incapable of feeling anything to suddenly being a tethering escort for the newly-truly deceased at any given moment. Being touched by the departed, scorched by their pain as they crossed over, was overwhelming. The expectation of jumping right into the thick of things after being unnoticed for so long was overwhelming. Jeremy's presence, his needs, his determination, his stubbornness…it was a lot of energy thrown her way after being surrounded by emptiness. As was Elena and the never-ending barrage of Elena-Stefan-doppelganger issues. And Caroline's conflicts with Tyler. And Matt's own brand of constant human bad luck. Nothing was simple or quiet or peaceful anymore. Nothing felt natural. And honestly, sometimes, Bonnie needed to disappear for a while to gather her bearings. To be this new connector for everyone that everyone expected her to be—as Anchor, as strategist, as witch tutor, as best friend—she needed to feel connected to herself. And nowadays, she wasn't sure who she was—not without everyone telling her what she _should_ be. But what _could_ she be? Figuring this out was harder than it had ever been, even back when it was the simple-but-difficult task of being a teenager finding her way, let alone a teenage witch finding her way. Now…now her identity was even more complicated with the history of violence and death and abandonment and broken heart issues mounting on top of each other in such a short span of time. It was far from surprising that there were days when she feared a panic attack might knock her down and she would simply stay down.

So she would pull headphones onto her head—unconcerned with how they would mess with her bangs, unconcerned with how big they might look on her petite form—and she would disappear. She would close her eyes, center her breathing, and fade away with the rhythm, the strings, the bass, the voices in her ears that she _could_ control with the press of a button instead of the undead whispers that floated around her on a daily basis. Music raised walls around her and swaddled her in a box of infinite meanings. Music was her temporary safe haven. It was the substitute for the touch and soothing advice of Grams. It was the alternative to her father's rich voice lecturing her, albeit meaning well. It was a reprieve from the pain of death scorching her skin. Music was another world, but a safe world that couldn't control her.

_Don't wanna call my friends…or they might wake me from this dream._

Rarely did she disappear when her friends were around. When headphones came on, she felt like she was lying on a raft in the warm sun, floating out toward the ocean. There shouldn't be anyone on the shore to wave her back in when she wasn't ready. She didn't want to feel obliged to press pause or turn down the volume to answer someone's call.

On another day, she would have plugged in her headphones the minute Damon passed through the doorway looking for Elena. Or on another day, Bonnie would have grabbed her belongings and headed onto campus to find a secluded tree, a hidden bench; some place surrounded by earth to reconnect her with Mother Nature, her now distant relative. And with that leafy shelter, she would imagine the breeze rustling her hair was a maternal caress comforting her that her then-absent|now-vampire mother had never been capable of giving her. Today, she didn't have the patience to stifle the music's resounding power from bouncing around the room. Today, she didn't have the calmness to plug in her headphones. She was still shaking from the touch of a young vampire—a girl around her age—who hadn't been prepared or ready to die. The sharpness in that one touch—the flash of anger, confusion, and pain—the look in the young vampire's eyes were too imprinted on her immediate senses for her to feel anything but restless.

Bonnie's hands had just steadied themselves on her comforter after squeezing, releasing, squeezing, releasing the fabric between her fists. The tears had finished pooling onto the bed, their streaks drying on her cheeks. The door opened and suddenly there he was, clad in his usual blackness, donned with his usual unnerving expression—a mixture of amusement and judgment he seemed to reserve just for her. Her music thumped beside her on the table, and she thought about pausing it immediately to avoid any comments about her listening choices. But as she tilted her head in his direction, stilling her motions, not bothering to wipe away any remaining tear tracks, she only sat up on her elbows and waited for him to start their usual battle.

That appeared to be Damon's plan, too. But she could see the moment he stopped himself—the moment when his smirk cracked. Maybe he was seeing her, seeing the side of her she allowed in these moments. The Sad Girl. The Frustrated Girl. The Lonely Girl. The Broken Girl. She didn't have enough time to switch back to her game-on face. She decided, _No. I just don't have the damns to give right now. _His vibrant blue eyes looked into her green ones for what must have been mere seconds, but it felt longer than that to her as she thought she could sense his demeanor switch into a more playful mode just as quickly as Observant Damon had appeared. He greeted her with a tip of his imaginary hat and a brief "Bon-Bon" before closing the door with his boot and swaggering across the room toward Elena's bed.

When he didn't push her, say anything condescending or demeaning, she returned her gaze to the ceiling as the lyrics swirled around them. "If you stay, you stay quiet," she had told him softly, plainly, simply. She saw and heard his movement out of the corner of her eye, what she imagined was him flopping onto the bed.

_Oh I am what I am, I'll do what I want. But I can't hide…_

She turned to look at him, to make sure he understood. He made one of his exaggerated faces—the one that said "Sure, I'll humor you" as he shrugged and reclined on the bed, throwing his hands under his head. He didn't explain himself, why he was there, what was going on with him and Elena, or any gang-related news. She didn't explain herself, why she was there, or what was going on with her.

The melancholic tune filled her with each inhale and she found it harder to breathe. Glimpses of the dead's pain-driven memories were flashing across her eyelids like burning rays of nightmares. So she mouthed along to the lyrics. She focused on the words, the meaning. She let the rhythm become her heartbeat, the strings the lines of her consciousness. She breathed through the song, breathed through the pain of remembrance.

When the final chord faded away, it bled into an ethereal mixture of outer worldly sounds. She ran a hand through her hair, digging her nails into her scalp.

_I just want to feel safe in my own skin._

_I just want to be happy again._

_I just want to feel deep in my own world._

_But I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore…_

If she had startled him when she started to sing along, he didn't show it. She was sure her voice sounded whispery, husky. She hadn't used it since that morning when she had last seen her roommates. Or perhaps it was when the young vampire had shown her what it felt like to be staked by the person you thought truly loved you.

Singing along, lost in her own skin, Bonnie could almost pretend that she was still a witch. This song made her feel like she was floating above her bed like the first time she made downy feathers from Elena's pillow dance around them. Bonnie could almost feel the air flirt with the hem of her dress, a preternatural breeze caressing her locks instead of her fingers; the coolness of the moon's strength, the heat of the sun's power, coursing through her veins. She flexed her knuckles as though she could summon that energy again, direct it around her. But…

_On a different day, if I was safe in my own skin_

_Then I wouldn't feel lost and so frightened._

_But this is today, and I'm lost in my own skin._

_And I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore._

Still caught within the song's spell, the haunting vocalist, the shuddering sense of powerlessness throbbing, constantly remembering over and over again the disconnect that existed between her and the sun, the moon, the earth, the waters, the plants; feeling that numbness tingle and prickle into a distraught sense of awareness, she turned her head towards the room's other occupant. Opening her eyes slowly, she gazed at him only to see that his eyes were closed, his face frozen in a mask of unreadable emotions. Unfazed, she closed her eyes, allowed her bangs to hide her face, and sang along with the chorus's whispers, trying to convince herself.

_Now you're safe…ohh…How I feel…ooh…_

She opened her eyes and felt her consciousness return to the still dorm room, still half-asleep with emotions. She could see Damon's figure get up and walk around her bed, see a mass of black smoothly move from the corners of her vision, until she could feel the mixture of coldness and slight warmth bounce off of his body next to her. She peered up, but his back was to her. The way that his arm moved, she could tell he was shifting through her music player. On a different day, she might have said something to him about respecting her property; about recognizing that she actually lived in the room and it was her space to listen to whatever she wanted. But instead, she remained silent out of curiosity. Instead, she remained a statue, inanimate, waiting to see what he had selected.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised when a stronger drum set and a deep, resonating bass guitar disturbed the eerie haze from before. His head bobbed along, getting into the rhythm. She couldn't help but find the sight peculiar yet relaxing, and her toes started tapping along without further encouragement. Rarely did she see him enjoy music—usually only during near-fatal themed school dances. He would like this song, though—this band, even. There was an interesting level of comfort in knowing they shared something in common that seemed fairly random.

_She turned away, what was she looking at? She was a sour girl the day that she met me._

_Hey, what are you looking at? She was a happy girl the day that she left me…_

And then he turned towards her. His face was…was that sadness? Pity? She felt her nose scrunch at the thought of being pitied by him. No, maybe it was…understanding? She snapped out of her thoughts when he started to sing along.

_She turned away, what was she looking at? She was a sour girl the day that she met me._

_Hey! What are you looking at? She was a happy girl when she left me…_

His voice wasn't perfectly in pitch, but it had a rich mesmerizing quality she wasn't expecting. His half-silly, mostly-_I-don't-care_ sway-dancing was just as mesmerizing, and she found herself singing along with him quietly.

_What would you do? What would you do if I followed you? _

_What would you do if I followed?_

He moved…no, danced…to the foot of her bed near her swaying foot, and began dancing like the show was only for her. His belt was dangerously close to her toes, and she wasn't about to move because he certainly wasn't acting like he wanted her to. There was that cocky Damon she knew. Yet she couldn't help the blush that was creeping along her face. He looked ridiculous. But confident. And attractive. And he didn't care about anything in that moment except the music. And she had a feeling he didn't care because he recognized that she needed that—someone to be around, and simply _be_, without making a big deal out of anything. He was listening to her music with her. How could something so easy mean so much? So while he didn't touch her toes like she had expected, he did reach out a hand to her. She raised an eyebrow subconsciously and raised herself onto her elbows as he continued to move to the music. And as she listened to the lyrics instead of singing along, her heart picked up and she questioned what this song might mean to him.

_Don't turn away, what are you looking at? _(Of course he would wink at her.)

_He was so happy on the day that he met her. _

_Say, what are you looking at? I was a superman, but looks are deceiving._

_The rollercoaster ride's a lonely one. I'd pay a ransom note to stop it from steaming._

_Hey! What are you looking at? She was a teenage girl when she met me._

_What would you do? _She couldn't help but sing along before she sighed and took his hand. He smiled triumphantly, pulling her upright with ease. While she wasn't expecting the heft of the tug, he easily caught her in his arms and set her more petite frame onto the ground, giving her a second to find her balance. When she seemed fine and didn't automatically unlock her hand, he playfully swung their joined hands to the music. She watched bemused as he continued to serenade her, tempting her. He moved their hands with more exaggerated energy, making it harder for her to not roll her eyes and chuckle. He used the built-up momentum to twirl her in surprise, chiseling a smile out of her as her back collided with his chest. She felt them fall into the dance steps she remembered from the Decade Dance…the one when he had held her close and, for the first time, implied that he cared more about her than he let on….

She couldn't ignore the irony. She had been a sour girl when Damon had met her, just realizing her witch lineage and being forced into a million simultaneous dangerous situations to stop the supernatural world from hurting her family and home. And Damon had been a deceptive superman in his strength and anger, using anyone and anything in his path to get to Katherine. And he had followed Bonnie, just as she had been happy whenever she could get rid of him. But that was in the beginning, when he had seemed like a more unpredictable monster. Strange that he had turned out to be one of her greatest allies after all of this, if only when they could get past their moral polarities.

When she had grown detached due to Shane's influence, Damon had been the one to stay behind on the island and find her. When she had died, of everyone who knew of her demise, he had been the one to immediately strategize how to get her back. And he had done it only to make it seem like it was essentially no big deal. But it was. When compared to the Decade Dance version of herself, she was spinning in the here and now with her hair shorter, her dress more modern, her sense of self void of magic; yet when he twirled her and wrapped his arm around her as though in a hug, she felt that sense of empowerment, of importance, of determination that was contagious around this version of Damon she had been getting to know better.

He murmured into her ear…_The girl got reasons. They all got reasons…_

He spun her away quickly and she enjoyed that moment of suspension when she was as far away from him as she could be while still connected. And then he was pulling her back towards him, and she felt herself fall before he pushed against her, creating a space between them as he led them into easy-going footsteps. He would spin her, rock with her, let her go so they could improvise their own silly movements.

When she expected the song to end, she was surprised when it started back over. She turned to look at him, her eyes shining a bit more brightly than when he had entered the room.

"You put it on repeat?" she asked, a little out of breath.

"Figured if I could get you to dance, you might shake off some of those blues," he admitted, throwing in an extreme shake-and-shout gesture that earned a hearty laugh. "This was a better song to shake to."

"How much blues're we talking about shaking off?" she followed up, dancing around him.

"Whatever it takes to make you less of a sour girl, Bon-Bon," he diagnosed, not missing a beat to gently touch her chin.

"That might take a while," she admitted, taking the initiative to take one of his hands and place her free hand on his shoulder.

"Well then, it's a good thing my calendar is clear for the afternoon," he told her, wagging his eyebrows as he pulled her a bit closer to him and swayed them in a two-step.

"It'll take longer than an afternoon, Damon," she confessed a little less playfully.

He shrugged nonchalantly, though the brush-off didn't reach his eyes. She could see the commiseration there. "Well, it's a good thing I'm immortal, isn't it," he retorted. "And it's a good thing I'm good at pestering you to get what I want."

She nudged his shoulder. "Oh please."

"You know I'm good!"

"At being a pain in the ass? Sure. But you don't make me act on your whim by being annoying!"

"Oh please," he mimicked.

"What do you want anyways?"

"You're smart, Anchor Woman. I'm sure you can figure it out," he teased, staring straight into her eyes.

She sighed heavily as though annoyed, but she felt his hand squeeze hers while his other hand traveled to run through her hair and gently recommend that she lean against his chest. She went along and was pleasantly surprised by the rumble against her ear as he sang softly, _What would you do? What would you do if I followed you? What would you do if I followed…_She peered up at him and half-grinned at him. He half-grinned in return.

"There's part of it," he whispered to her as though a secret. She had no warning when his hand was at her back and she found her world tilted at a sharp angle as Damon dipped her, holding her in place with a strong grasp. It was so sudden she might have felt whiplash if it also wasn't so riveting. "Lower?" he asked, his voice ironically dropping as well. She nodded her head as she felt her body dipped farther towards the floor. When he pulled her back onto her feet, she was stationary for only a second before he was slowly twirling her away from him again. It was a smooth transition, but it left her feeling more lightheaded, which reminded her of what it felt like when she overdid her use of magic. She could almost envision small yellow lights floating in the air around them like fireflies or little balls of fire. Bonnie recognized it was probably just her brain reacting to all of the physical stimulation, but it still felt like her body was humming. She decided she had spent enough time that day mourning her former self. She was no longer a witch. She no longer had her Grams or Dad. She no longer felt the same connection to the world around her. But she was alive—sort of. She still had her friends. And she had to believe she was more than a role to play in the supernatural fiasco. And that was enough to brush off the cloud of depression…for now.

She smiled up at her dance partner. "There we go," he murmured. "Now that I've chastised you with these talented hands of mine," to which she _had_ to roll her eyes and he _had _to scoff at her before continuing, "and now that we've got a functioning smile, we can focus more on the dancing." And like that, the energy in the room turned up as the dance moves became less lethargic, less comforting, more spontaneous, and more ridiculous. They changed the song selections intermittently, one person shuffling through playlists until he would say, "Yeah, that one!" or she would say, "Stop stop that's a good one!" She laughed when he removed his jacket none-too-sexily and waved it over his head like a helicopter before tossing it in her face. He laughed when she did her best "Running Man," "Typewriter," and "Hustle" moves with exaggerated expressions.

When Elena finally came home, she was surprised to see Damon and Bonnie on Bonnie's bed. Their legs dangled off the edge, both seeming physically tired. But they were talking and snickering softly to each other in a way that made Elena feel like she had intruded on something unusual. And she couldn't decide whether to find the moment endearing or envy-worthy. Either way, Bonnie didn't know what it meant when she automatically tensed under Elena's gaze, and found herself driven to sit up and away from Damon, even though that wasn't what the goose bumps along her arms and legs wanted her to do. Regardless, Bonnie took Elena's arrival as her cue to leave, though Elena (and Damon, surprisingly) insisted she stick around. But Bonnie shook her head, deciding it might be good to continue being around people who could make her feel normal—perhaps find Caroline. But before she left the bed, storing her iPod and headphones in the messenger bag she kept by her bed for immediate adventures, she softly sang to herself, _She was a happy girl the day that she left me…_trailing off while glancing subtly over shoulder at Damon's still-reclining frame. He sat up, not looking her in the eyes, but reached behind her and tugged gently on a strand of her short hair. She grinned and said her goodbye before she left them.


End file.
